Read Online Sound by Alexandra Duncan - Free Book Online Page A

the gold brings out the honey-brown tint in my eyes. Lian has even managed to braid my hair into an elegant spiral at the top of my head—I guess it’s true what they say about needing nimble fingers to work in robotics. But it’s the lips that put a hitch in my breath. That red . . . the fullness—my mother’s face flashes before me, her hair a halo of free-floating curls, her lips painted the color of a crimson sunbird, the blurred memory snapping into perfect focus.
    I steady myself against the wall. In my memories, my mother is always beautiful, perfect. But now I remember the scar slicing through the left side of her mouth, the stiffness when she smiled. It never stopped her from picking out the brightest colors to paint her lips. It’s her. I look so much like her.
    â€œMiyole?” Lian touches my shoulder. “Are you okay?”
    In the mirror, my face has gone gray. I look like I might throw up.
    â€œI’m fine.” I turn away from the mirror and clear my throat. “Thanks for this. Really.”
    â€œAny time.” Lian exchanges a worried look with Jyotsana and Madlenka. “You’re sure you’re okay?”
    â€œNever better.” I remember to make myself smile this time. Smiling always used to throw Ava and Soraya off my case when either of them went all mother hen on me.
    â€œYou’d better go,” Madlenka says. “You don’t want to be late to your first officers’ dinner.”
    I escape into the corridors and wipe at the lipstick with the back of my hand. Normally I take the emergency stairwells to move from deck to deck—I run into fewer people that way—but I don’t want to show up in the mid-tier dining room looking like I’ve come straight from a three-kilometer sim run, so I head for the lifts instead.
    I find a spot near the back of the car, next to the window that overlooks the decks as we pass. A crowd of maintenance and repair technicians push in after me, several of them eyeing my outfit. The doors begin to slide shut, but a shout from the other side stops them short.
    â€œWait! Hold the door.”
    A carefully tousled brown head joins the crowd at the front of the lift. “Thanks.”
    I press myself against the window and sink down. Rubio. Perfect. Not for the first time, I curse my bad luckat being one of the tallest girls aboard the Ranganathan . Maybe he’ll step off in a tier or two and never even notice I’m in the same car. I catch myself rubbing the smooth scar on my left palm, and clasp my hands to make myself stop.
    The lift drops in a smooth descent. The upper recreation gardens spread out below us, green and orderly, dotted with crew members cleaning up debris from the attack. Its domed ceiling has already scarred over where the dakait breached the Ranganathan ’s skin. Part of the hedge maze has burned down to blackened twigs, but I can still make out its design—a central hub and twenty-four spokes closed inside a circle, the wheel of life. The sign graces my adopted country’s flag, but more than that, it means dharma, duty—the keystone of ship life. We each have a role in bringing life out to the Deep, to the shadowed worlds at the sun’s farthest reach, even if that role occasionally feels ridiculous or pointless, like, say, chasing down a tomcat or putting on a sari to go to dinner with the first officers.
    The lift stops even with the green lawns of the recreation garden. The maintenance techs pile out, but Rubio only steps aside to let them pass.
    Don’t let him see me. Don’t let him see me, I beg. But it’s nouse. Rubio glances over and catches sight of me as the door slides closed.
    His eyes light up. “Hey, memsahib!”
    Dammit.
    â€œRubio.” I straighten my spine and let my tone frost over with formality.
    He makes his way to the back of the lift as it drops below the recreation level. The windows go